Bankrupt European refiner Petroplus has received more than 40 expressions of interest in its 175,000 barrel/day Coryton refinery in southeast England. The plant is the company’s most profitable and complex refinery.
A good comparison would be the 220,000 barrel/day Pembroke refinery in Wales that Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO) purchased from Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) last August for $730 million, not including working inventory. Refineries are not very popular right now, but price of around $650 million for Coryton doesn’t seem unreasonable.
A Reuters report notes only that there are some “very credible” buyers among the tire-kickers, including European oil companies, commodity trading houses, and companies from Russia and the Middle East.